Brave Sara reveals how the letters helped her begin to forgive herself after years of anguish in her ‘most honest interview ever’ with Ben Griffiths

Sara Payne describes how her book 'Letters to Sarah' will help grieving parents in her position

Brave Sara has written a book featuring a series of heart-breaking letters she has penned to the murdered daughter she calls “my angel”.

Today, in an interview she describes as “the most honest I have ever given”, she says: “I talk to Sarah almost every day in my head about mundane things like the weather. It helps me feel closer to her.

“Writing letters to her has helped to make up in a small way for the teenage years and beyond that I didn’t get with her — it has made her more real. It is hard to imagine how she would now be as a 25-year-old. I can hear her giggling. I can see her mischievous smile.

“For me I want to always ­remember her as that lovely, sweet eight-year-old girl.”

In an emotional interview to mark the release of Letters To Sarah, the 48-year-old has revealed how she still connects with her daughter by cuddling her favourite pink blanket.

She also strokes a lock of her blonde hair and even read the entire Harry Potter series in a bid to keep the little girl’s spirit close.

Sarah (bottom right) had been playing with brothers Lee (L) Luke (R) & sister Charlotte - Lee reported seeing a white van speeding off as he searched for his sister

Poignantly she adds: “I’ve just started to forgive myself for not being there for Sarah.”

Sara’s daughter vanished on July 1, 2000, after playing hide and seek with her siblings in the countryside close to her grandparents’ home near Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Seventeen days later, after a search by thousands of police, her body was found in a field 15 miles away.

Sarah’s killer, smirking loner Roy Whiting, then 41, had lured her into his white van.

Sara told The Sun on Sunday: “Sarah was at her happiest, playing and laughing the day she never came home.

“From the moment Sarah was taken, a fog descended and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, sleep, I couldn’t see. I was walking around and people were talking to me. I was answering but it wasn’t me.

Sara recalled the fateful day she was told Sarah’s body had been found. She said: “The children found out before I did. For 17 days I had thrown myself into positive thinking. I didn’t let anyone around me have bad thoughts.

“You weren’t allowed to think of death or kidnap. You were only allowed to think of when we were going to find her.

“A police liaison officer came round. He was ashen-faced. He said, ‘I need to talk to you, on your own, in the garden, away from the kids’.

“I went cold and there was like a loud bang in my head as if the worst was coming. Michael, Sarah’s father, was out so we waited a couple of minutes for him.

“But as we waited, my two boys ran into the garden, tears streaming down their face, saying, ‘Is it true? Is Sarah dead?’ I just froze.

It was also at the four-week trial at Lewes Crown Court that Sara first had a vivid real-life sense of Sarah laughing — something that still comes back to her, even now. She said: “Ever since Sarah was found I heard her giggle at ­inappropriate moments.

“It first happened in court when Roy Whiting was leaning back on his chair and he was next to a little door and a gate. It kept swinging open even though the guards kept closing it.

“That was when I first heard it in my head. It was one of her ­giggles at the top of her voice and it felt like she was right there, being mischievous.”

In the wake of Sarah’s death, Sara threw herself into campaigning for Sarah’s Law, which allows anyone to formally ask police if someone with access to a child has a record for child sexual offences.

She also had another daughter, Ellie, in 2003 — just months after parting from Michael, who she had been married to for 13 years, blaming the split on the strain of ­coping with murder.

Years of stress and campaigning resulted in her suffering two aneurysms. The last, in 2009, left her in a coma, with doctors telling family it was unlikely she would survive.

Sara and Michael seen here after the sentencing eventually split and Michael's despair drove him to drinking - he was found dead at his home in 2014

Sara, who now has limited movement in her left arm and short-term memory loss, said: “Things changed after the strokes. I couldn’t let my kids lose their mum as well.

“I knew I had to be easier on myself so I started working less.”

In 2014 the family was dealt another blow when Michael, whose despair had driven him to drinking, was found dead at his home. But Sara, now a gran of four, says their lost little girl has ­managed to bring comfort through it all and still brings the family together.

She said: “I try to include Sarah in the children’s lives.

“We have a huge picture on the wall of the family and right next to it is a large picture of Sarah. She is still one of the gang. She will for ever be part of the family.

“Sarah had a pink blanket that’s safely put away but every now and again it goes missing. It is always with one of the other children.